Creating fantasy RPG maps in a hand-drawn style

The different stages of the map.

I am currently working on a new continent that is an addition to one of my old worlds. This is really some unpretentious worldbuilding specifically aimed for playing D&D 5 without the need for too much fiddling with the game rules. This means that a lot in the world is given and for the most part this comes in the form of old fantasy clichés. As a consequence, the world has a polytheistic pantheon as well as elves, halflings, dwarves, orcs, powerful wizards and honourable paladins.

As can be seen, this is definitely not a world built with originality as the main priority, but convenience of play. I wanted it to be a world where a new player quickly could feel at home and where I could use premade adventures without having to spent days adapting them.

This does not mean that the world is totally void of anything interesting. The cultural and technological level is rather late for a D&D-world, more early Renaissance than High Middle Ages, and when the world "starts" the great war to defeat the evil overlord has recently been fought and won by the good alliance, but at a high price. The world is now in a post-war era where people are happy for the victory, but also mourns the terrible losses and destruction they have suffered. Player characters can be old war veterans scared by their memories, or young ambitious people eager to reconquer the devastated lands and stamp out the remaining evil presence once and for all. Always however a question lingers in peoples' minds, "Was this it, is the dark lord really gone forever?".

Anyway, at the beginning of the specific campaign, I have in mind the player characters will make a sea voyage from the old world to the new continent. It is a long passage and I thought that some interesting things could happen on the ship, but for that, I need a map of the ship. Since the world is set in the early Renaissance a carrack-like ship made sense. These ships ruled the waves in our world during the 15th century and the most famous example is probably Columbus' flagship La Santa María.

Woodcut of La Santa María from Columbus' letter (1493)

When drawing maps for worldbuilding, and specifically for fantasy RPGs, I am very fond of a hand-drawn look. For some reason, the "not perfect" feel of hand-inked maps really appeals to me. Drawing everything by hand, compared to using a computer, can however be very time-consuming. Luckily some shortcuts exist.

My preferred method is to avoid trying to create a totally finished map on paper, but instead draw the basic outlines, as well as all the elements I think I need for the map.

First I sketch everything lightly with a hard pencil (2H - 4H) and then ink over the lines with a Pilot G-TEC pen or a Staedtler pigment liner (with the finest point I can find). I try to draw everything in roughly the same scale, but small variations are not a problem (if the variations are big the final lines will, however, vary in width and look strange when I scale them correctly in the computer).

Almost fully inked drawing.

I then erase any still visible pencil lines and scan the ink drawing in relatively high resolution (at least 600 dpi).

In Photoshop (or Krita) I use levels (or sometimes curves) to turn the paper really white and the ink lines really dark. I erase anything that should not be in the drawing (remaining pencil marks, mistakes and dust marks) from the scan, but I try to not fix too much. It should look hand-drawn after all!

In Photoshop I can then duplicate, mirror, cut, and paste the elements as I please and can relatively quickly build a map, while still maintaining the hand-drawn feel. Remember to change the objects a bit (scale or rotate them very slightly) when you copy them to hide the fact that every detail has not really been drawn individually.

Cut and paste in Photoshop.

If I need a few new lines and do not feel that it is worth scanning a new drawing, a pencil brush in Photoshop can usually do the work without affecting the hand-drawn feel.

When I have finished the basic drawing I merge the line art layers, set the blending mode to multiply and add a nice paper texture as the background. In many cases, this black and white ink drawing are good enough as the end result.

Final ink drawing on paper texture.

Other times I continue and add some colour in a layer between the ink layer and the paper texture to add more interest and clarity. This does take some time though, often more than the rest of the process together. I use various blending modes here, usually "Multiply" and "Screen" and sometimes "Color" as well.
 

Colouring on the computer.

I try to use quite desaturated colours, partly because I like the result and partly so that the map's colour scheme does not compete with the attention of any tokens, miniatures or dry erase markers that are supposed to go on top of it.

Finished coloured map.

The final step is to add some text and numbers for the room descriptions. I also add a square grid at the very top of the layer stack (I make the grid lines thin and lower the opacity of the layer to make it less obtrusive).

Map with grid, text and numbers.

Who needs worldbuilding anyway?

This blog will mainly deal with worldbuilding and things that relate to this activity in any useful way, but what is worldbuilding at its core and who really needs it?

One answer to this question could be anyone who likes to dream up fictional places and worlds. I personally find it very entertaining to create a complex world with logical geography, an interesting history, and interdependent cultures.

Another answer could be that worldbuilding is relevant for anyone who needs a fictional place for a creative project, be it a book, comic or role-playing campaign. I think that a lot of creative people engage in worldbuilding without even thinking about it.

When discussing worldbuilding it is often more or less assumed that we are talking about the creation of large fantasy worlds in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien, M. A. R. Barker or George R. R. Martin, but this is definitely not the only time worldbuilding is needed.

 Family tree from Tolkien's early work.

Most forms of storytelling except maybe the purest realistic fiction, need worldbuilding to some degree. A large majority of authors that deal with the real world regularly invent purely fictional characters and places, and sometimes even whole towns, companies and organisations.

But the use of worldbuilding is a gradual scale. A few authors have taken it one step further and invent a whole fictional country such as Lilliput in "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift, Gilead in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", or Patusan in "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad.

Map of Lilliput and Blefuscu from the 1726 edition of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

At this point we come close to what most people think of when they hear the word worldbuilding. Even if the country is supposed to exists in an otherwise familiar world, or in some cases in the near future, it still needs a logical history, culture and political structure to be convincing to the reader.

Gulliver on the island of Lilliput.

The next logical level is the invention of complete fantasy worlds such as Tolkien's Arda and Barker's Tékumel, as we have already touched on. Although fantastic and strange in many ways, these worlds are still easily recognisable to us. Both share many basic concepts with our world and include humans as an important species. In the case of Arda and Tékumel, both even have a back story that at least briefly explains their place in our world.

Consequently it is possible to push worldbuilding even further than this and introduce truly alien forms of life and societies. Such worlds are most often found in science fiction and examples includes the three-gendered alien society in Isaac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" and the oceanic planet in Stanisław Lem's "Solaris".

Cover of the first English edition of Stanisław Lem's Solaris.

As can be seen, worldbuilding span the whole range of creation from a single made up person or building in a world otherwise similar to our own, to a completely alien universe with it's own societies, history, biology and physical laws.